Ashamed to be an American
Tuesday, April 23, 2002
OSAMA SHABANEH
SOFTWARE MANAGER
Two years ago, I became an American citizen. Prior to that, I wasn't a citizen of any country, at least on paper. "Where are you from?" was a question I found hard to answer. It still is.
I come from the town of Hebron on the West Bank. I lived most of my life under the Israeli military occupation until I moved to America a few years ago. Hebron is part of the historical Palestine, a country that once existed but currently is not on the list of nations.
Leaving my family behind was the most difficult experience of my life. Here I was, in the "land of the free," and there they were, still under occupation. I never expected that I would regret leaving my occupied homeland to live in freedom. Now, with passion, I do regret it.
For the past 18 months, millions of Palestinians have been living in a state of suffocating siege by the Israeli military. In the name of security for its citizens, Israel has been brutalizing a whole nation. To that end, American-made weaponry has been used against the Palestinian population. Billions of dollars in American tax money is directly supporting the continued aggression and the dismantling of the infrastructure of the Palestinian society.
Whenever I call my family in Hebron, I'm full of shame. The F-16s, the Apaches, the bullets, the gunships and the tanks that surround them are either manufactured in the United States or are paid for by the American taxayer, myself included. I feel directly responsible for the killing of my own people.
To add insult to injury, the White House has been giving tacit approval to the Israeli government in its latest bloody incursion into the Palestinian-controlled areas. The tough talk that President Bush has directed at Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is petty at best and is, by all account, meaningless. The Israelis have already done a good job obliterating the Jenin refugee camp and massacring hundreds of Palestinians inside. Death is also rampant all over the West Bank and Gaza, where the Israeli military is wantonly destroying Palestinian lives and livelihoods.
I become very fascinated when Bush and his Cabinet members, or members of the U.S. Senate or House, repeatedly brand the Palestinian struggle as terrorism, and allude to the Israeli actions as self-defense. Only one day after Israel took over the Jenin refugee camp and killed hundreds of Palestinians inside and expelled or arrested the rest, the White House called Ariel Sharon a "man of peace." |
